Until today, that is, when the project was rekindled with a modern twist.

Using a giant “electronic telescope” and state-of-the-art technology, England and America were joined once again when the tunnel entrances were reopened beside Tower Bridge in London and Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

It meant that New Yorkers and Londoners could wave to each other across the sea and begin the kind of mute dialogue that was only a dream all those years ago for eccentric engineering entrepreneur Alexander Stanhope St George (deceased).

Or at least, that’s the way the story goes.

What is certain is that now you can indeed stand on the South Bank of the UK end of the 21st century “Telectroscope” – and see someone standing 3,460 miles away across the water.

Of course, only part of this story is true.

The trans-Atlantic tunnel is really a trans-Atlantic broadband network rounded off on each end with HD cameras —according to Tiscali — an Italian Internet provider handling the technical side of the project.

As for the Telectroscope, well, it was a fanciful idea that — according to St. George — came about from a typo made by a 19th-century reporter who misspelled Electroscope — a device used to measure electrostatic charges — as Telectroscope.